Asia awaits gains from WTO reforms

Asia awaits gains from WTO reforms

Reuters, Sydney/Tokyo

Asia is warily counting expected region-wide gains from big
decisions by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to launch a round
of global trade reform negotiations and to admit China and Taiwan
as members.

A Reuters survey of government and trade opinions across Asia
shows payoffs are expected by poverty-mired developing countries
through to rich industrial giants led by Japan.

"The entry of China and Taiwan into the WTO means two large
markets will be open to foreign competition. It is basically
positive for the Asian economy overall," said Akio Shibata, chief
economist at Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp's research
institute.

The growing consensus is that WTO's Doha decisions two weeks
ago provide enough meat for gains by all countries of the region.

For most developing countries, inclusion of farm trade in a
reform round for the first time since the groundbreaking 1994
Uruguay Round offers enough prospective export gains to outweigh
threats to domestic industries from freer trade, analysts say.

For developed countries, such as Japan, there are also gains.
Like Korea, the second most industrialized Asian country, Japan
is digging in to save its politically loaded rice sector from the
extra imports which farm trade reform might bring.

But Japan's greater need is the industrial energy which a
controlled opening of China to foreign investment would provide.
It might have to compromise on rice, Shibata said.

Australia, whose A$30 billion (US$15.6 billion) a year worth
of unsubsidized exports of grains, sugar and other farm produce
battle state-assisted exports around the world, is geographical
Asia's most clear-cut winner from Doha.

Gains are also seen by developing Asian economies, from
Indonesia to India.

"Our products (will be able to) compete with imported
products, which have been cheaper because of subsidies,"
Indonesia's Trade and Industry Minister Rini Soewandi said.

For Indonesia, palm oil, a basis for margarine and cooking
oils around the world, is an important example of expected gains.

China's imports under WTO entry conditions will rise to 2.4
million tons in 2002 from 1.5 million tons this year.

"It's a great opportunity for us to catch a growing Chinese
market," Derom Bangun, chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil
Producers Association, whose members provide 25 percent of
China's imports, told Reuters in Jakarta.

Malaysia, the world's largest producer which exported 1.02
million tons to China in 2000, sees similar gains.

Increased exports to China are seen extending virtually across
the farm good range, from grains to sugar to soybeans.